


Touché Annex

by TheZpart



Series: Touché-Verse and Associated Prompts [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boarding School, F/F, Fencing, Meet-Cute, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23722261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheZpart/pseuds/TheZpart
Summary: Side stories set in the Touché-Verse, as prompted by my delightful readers. Read Touché first or none of this will make sense. Characters/tags to be added as I post chapters
Relationships: Carey Fangbattle/Killian
Series: Touché-Verse and Associated Prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657273
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	Touché Annex

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chasingconstellations](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingconstellations/gifts), [LeapinGoldFish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeapinGoldFish/gifts).



> This first chapter is for chasingconstellations who wanted Carey/Killian and LeapinGoldFish who wanted Carey pulling a heist!

Carey was distinctly un-stoked to be attending St. Ioun’s Academy. It was just another one of these stuffy bullshit girls’ schools her mom thought would make her appropriately feminine (probably number one on a list of things that would cause Hell to freeze over, but then, her mom was as stubborn about this shit as she was). Unfortunately, her mom had told her that if she got kicked out, that was it. They wouldn’t support her anymore, at all. And, you know, not that she needed her parents or anything, but she was short on marketable skills. So, she dropped her suitcase on the bed in her new dorm room with an attitude she’d never had before: She was going to make the best of things.

It helped that there was a fencing team here. For some reason, her mother’s image of a Lady included knowing how to stab shit, and Carey _loved_ stabbing shit. It was one of her great passions, along with stealing shit, pissing off her mom, and girls who were more than a foot taller than her. The military school she’d just successfully gotten herself expelled from hadn’t had a fencing team, so she was probably rusty, but she’d catch up.

Sure enough, after the first meeting of the intramural fencing club, the coach pulled her aside and asked her if she wanted to be on the team. It was a special case—Carey should have started as an alternate, but one of the girls on the team had broken her leg in a jetskiing accident over winter break, so there was an opening. Obviously, Carey said yes.

Lucy Boyland was a short girl with heavy, expressive eyebrows, an illegal Juul, and a more perfect flèche than anyone Carey’d ever fenced with. They weren’t instant friends, but they vibed. Boyland knew all the gaps in the school’s security system—between her smoking and her off-campus boyfriend, she had plenty of reason to—which was useful for Carey’s nefarious purposes. Not that she was getting into many shenanigans lately, but still. When they took busses to tournaments, Carey and Boyland always sat together.

And then there was Killian.

Killian Kahnna was the one thing Carey couldn’t understand, which was _serious_. About school, about the team, about _everything_. It was three months into the semester, and Carey had never seen her laugh. She was always studying, and if she wasn’t studying she was working out, and if she wasn’t working out she was eating balanced meals and getting seven hours of sleep a night. There was backstory, which was that Killian was at St. Ioun’s on an academic scholarship, and had to maintain a certain GPA to keep it. But it’s not like she was the only scholarship student there. The other girls worked hard, sure, but they also planned dances and overslept and pulled pranks and ran yelling down the hall at all hours of the night. Killian did none of that. She was, Carey thought, no fun at all.

The problem was that she was also gorgeous. Inexplicably zit-less brown skin, glossy black hair that, when Killian unbraided it, fell past her waist, back muscles that lowkey gave Carey a heart attack the first time she saw Killian in a tank top. And she was six feet tall, which was Carey’s greatest weakness.

So, if Carey watched—didn’t watch, that was creepy, _kept an eye on_ —Killian as she fenced and studied and did pull-ups in the gym, who could blame her? She didn’t _like_ her, she was just enjoying the aesthetic opportunities St. Ioun’s had on offer. You know. Super chill.

But now it was the end of March, and the school was abuzz with whispers. April Fools’ Day was around the corner, and Carey had been around enough to know that April Fools’ at a boarding school was an Event. Carey was hype as fuck. She’d kept her nose clean for the whole semester, but _this_ was a socially sanctioned opportunity to pull the kind of dumb bullshit that Carey loved, and she was _not_ going to pass it up.

If she played a prank on the whole school, she’d risk getting kicked out again, so she settled for the next best thing. “Hey,” she said to Boyland, “let’s prank Killian.”

And Boyland said, “Fuck yes.”

It wasn’t a complicated plan, not Carey’s masterwork or anything, but it was going to work. On March 30th, Carey and Boyland bought a box of ziplock bags at the nearby convenience store. On March 31st, at lunch, both of them kept going back to the cafeteria line for more pudding—only instead of eating it, they transferred it to the ziplock bags they had hidden in their backpacks.

Everyone kept their dorm rooms unlocked, even though the staff was always _begging_ them to lock up, so breaking into Killian’s room was only a matter of waiting for her and her roommate to be out. Killian always went to the optional evening review sessions their calc teacher held before tests, though, and there was one that night. Boyland texted that Killian’s roommate was in the dorm kitchen with a group, and they sprung into action.

The idea was that, when Killian woke up and put on her jacket the next morning, she’d have pudding filling her jacket pockets. Also maybe her pants pockets, Carey hadn’t decided yet. It would come out in the wash, but it would freak her out plenty. While Boyland stood watch at the end of the hallway, Carey cut off the corner of the ziplock and used it like a piping bag, filling the pockets of the dark green coat hanging on Killian’s wardrobe door. 

It was supposed to be a quick thing, just in and out, but Carey had never been in Killian’s room, and it wasn’t quite what she’d expected. She’d pictured an austere, sterile office-like space, but Killian’s side of the room was as homey as any dorm she’d ever been in. She had one of those photo boards up behind her desk, full of pictures of her with friends from home and family. She was _smiling_ in those photos, real smiles, not the stiff ones she’d occasionally show at school. Here she was being shoved into a pool by a dark-haired girl, both of them laughing. Here she was wearing a sari, arm-in-am with a woman in a wedding dress who must have been a big sister or cousin or something. Here she was in fencing whites, maybe middle-school aged, with a mask tucked under one arm and a trophy in her hand, grinning fit to burst.

Carey’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Boyland had texted her

_SHES BACK GET OUT_

Carey made for the door, but the handle was already turning. So she did the only thing she could do—she jumped in the wardrobe, pulling the doors closed behind her. She huddled among Killian’s clothing, barely breathing, listening to Killian’s footsteps. She heard a backpack hit the floor, a sigh, more footsteps.

And then Killian opened the wardrobe door.

Killian screamed.

Carey screamed.

“What the fuck!” Killian shouted, seeming barely to understand what was happening in front of her.

“I’m sorry!” Carey cried, putting her hands up.

“What the _fuck!_ ” Killian said again.

Before Carey could explain, or lie, or whatever it was she was going to do, there was a knock on the door. “Everything okay in there?”

It was Miss Cohen, their RA. She opened the door a crack. They must have woken her up from a nap with their screaming—she was bleary-eyed and her hair was sticking up every-which-way.

Carey’s heart stopped. If Killian told on her, she was toast. Even if she was only suspended for breaking into another student’s room, her mom could decide that was the end of her college fund. She looked at Killian, eyes huge, silently pleading.

“Hi, Miss Cohen,” Killian said, calmly. “Sorry to wake you. We were just goofing around.”

Miss Cohen looked skeptical. Carey was, after all, fully in the wardrobe. 

“Sorry, we didn’t realize how loud we were,” Carey added.

Miss Cohen took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “Well, please keep your voices down. People are trying to study.”

“Yes, Miss Cohen,” Carey and Killian chorused.

Miss Cohen closed the door. For a moment, Carey and Killian stood frozen.

Then Killian burst out laughing. She laughed so hard she had to sit down, right there on the floor. Carey couldn’t help it, she started giggling too. She tried to catch her breath, but every time she got close she’d look at Killian just dissolving on the floor and she’d start laughing again.

Eventually, what must have been like ten minutes later, Killian got her breath back. “Oh my God,” she said. “Okay, what the fuck were you doing in my closet?”

“Being gay,” Carey said reflexively, and when Killian raised an eyebrow at her, added, “Also putting pudding in your pockets.”

“Putting _pudding_ in my _pockets_?”

“Um.” This was the part where Killian could get really mad at her. Carey hadn’t thought Killian’s feelings about her mattered until literally this moment.

But Killian broke up laughing again. “Dude, that is _so_ good! Is that what you and Boyland have been giggling about this whole week?”

“Yeah,” Carey said, relief flooding her.

“Fucking brilliant. Hey,” Killian stood up from the floor. “Want to help me get Boyland back tomorrow?”

“Fuck yes,” said Carey. She took Killian’s offered hand, and by the time she was out of the wardrobe, she was already in love.


End file.
